Daily Archives: August 5, 2013

Last week, the Chinese authorities created a stir when they announced that they are initiating an urgent review of outstanding debt for all of the various levels of the public sector in China, right down to individual villages. This raised market concerns, because one interpretation of this action is that the authorities may not have a handle on the amount of publicly-guaranteed debt in the economy, particularly in the local government sector, where the growth of debt has recently been extraordinarily rapid.

The authorities do not appear to have decided when (or whether) the results of this survey will be announced and of course there will be the usual suspicions that the eventual numbers will be massaged for public view. Until recently, it had generally been assumed by China watchers that, while the growth in private and corporate credit was running dangerously ahead of GDP growth, there was a major silver lining in the healthy financial condition of the government sector. Read more

Gavyn Davies

on macroeconomics

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About Gavyn

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A blog on macroeconomics, economic policymaking and the financial markets. Gavyn usually writes about a key topic of the week on Sunday.

Gavyn Davies is a macroeconomist who is now chairman of Fulcrum Asset Management and co-founder of Prisma Capital Partners. He was the head of the global economics department at Goldman Sachs from 1987-2001, and was chairman of the BBC from 2001-2004.

He has also served as an economic policy adviser in No 10 Downing Street, an external adviser to the British Treasury, and as a visiting professor at the London School of Economics.

Gavyn Davies is an active investor and may have financial interests and holdings in any of the topics about which he writes. The views expressed are solely those of Mr Davies and in no way reflect the views of Prisma Capital Partners LP, Fulcrum Asset Management LLP, their respective affiliates or representatives. This material is not intended to provide, and should not be relied upon for, investment advice or recommendations.

Readers are urged to seek professional advice before making any investments.